Digital graphic design, image editing, audio editing, and video editing applications (hereafter collectively referred to as media content editing applications or media-editing applications) provide graphical designers, media artists, and other users with the necessary tools to create a variety of media content. Examples of such applications include Final Cut Pro® and iMovie®, both sold by Apple Inc. These applications give users the ability to edit, combine, transition, overlay, and piece together different media content in a variety of manners to create a resulting media project. The resulting media project specifies a particular sequenced composition of any number of text, audio, image, and/or video content elements that is used to create a media presentation.
Various media-editing applications facilitate such composition through electronic means. Specifically, a computer or other electronic device with a processor and computer readable storage medium executes the media content editing application. In so doing, the computer generates a graphical interface whereby designers digitally manipulate graphical representations of the media content to produce a desired result.
One difficulty in media-editing is that a user cannot easily try out different ideas of compositing media content elements and see the resulting media presentations. For example, to create a media presentation, contents in the form of media clips need to be brought into a media project, which usually has a timeline and multiple tracks. The timeline and multiple tracks necessarily creates positional relationships between the media clips placed in the tracks. Understanding the meaning or effect of placing a media clip on a particular track at a particular position of the timeline requires familiarity and the sophistication associated with the complex applications and tends to overwhelm or discourage untrained users. Moreover, there is a sense of commitment or structure in a timeline that does not encourage experimentation or “playing around.”